The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for conveying sausages, especially fresh, non-smoked sausages, from a sausage stuffing machine to a packing unit.
Currently, sausages that have been portioned and twisted off in a sausage stuffing machine are removed from that machine manually and are then placed in packing containers of a subsequent packing unit. This method is not only laborious and expensive since up to five people are needed in order to convey the sausages coming from the sausage stuffing machine to the packing unit, but is also unhygienic. Each individual sausage must be picked up by hand and, at times, must be held for an extended period of time so that, during the time needed for a casing exchange in the sausage shifting machine which is working at a high portioning speed, the packing unit which is working in cycles may be loaded. Manually conveying sausages from the sausage shifting machine to the packing unit is therefore not economical and outdated
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and a method with which it is possible to introduce in an automated process the sausages that have been portioned and twisted off by a sausage stuffing machine into packing containers of a packing unit, without the sausages having been touched by personnel. The construction of such an apparatus should be kept simple and, at the same time, the operating costs should be reduced to a great extent by reducing the necessary personnel compared to the required personnel for prior art methods. It is also an object of the present invention to overcome the different operating speeds of the interconnected machines. Also, a simple adjustment with respect to different products should be possible and the capacity of the machine should be programmable.